Whilst I would love to spend hours and hours going on about why we shouldn’t break our transfer record on someone I don’t believe to be good enough for the club, I won’t, I’ll try and be a bit fairer to our Belgian hero.
There is a reason Everton are spending so much money. £30m on Keane, £30m on Pickford, £24m on Klaasen. They know there’s money coming in. That must be from Lukaku. Jose didn’t rate him at United. Which leaves us. It’s happening. My predictions in previous pieces have been absolutely atrocious so I’ll whisper it. (Lukaku will be a Chelsea player by September).
Let’s celebrate that by looking at his weaknesses.
Mentality
- Super Cup 2013. We play against Champions League winning Bayern Munich and battle with ten men for a long period of the game, managing to hold them to a 2-2 draw. Although holding them consisted of conceding a last gasp equaliser! We get to penalties. Lukaku steps up to keep us in it. He misses. We lose. He cries. And then cries a bit more. And a bit more after that. Bayern celebrate, a bit. Not loads as it’s the Super Cup. Lukaku is still crying.
- Now whilst I want players at the club who want to play for the club and actually care about whether we win, lose or draw, what I don’t want is someone who makes it all about them. If you watch any Everton games you’ll see that Lukaku is one of the most expressive players in the Premier League. For example, Mirallas will steam down the wing, put a cross in and it gets cut out by the first man. Watch Lukaku. He jumps up and down, stamps his feet and throws his arms around like a small child. Do you want to see this every week at the Bridge? Victor Moses, as he is one to do, runs into traffic and the ball gets cleared. Do you want to see a very large man have a tantrum 14 times a game? I don’t.
- A will to win is a positive thing. He seems like a positive, driven person which in the macro, is a good thing. However, when that will to win manifests itself in a negative way, it causes a person to become selfish and have a negative impact. This may seem a bit of a character assassination on Lukaku but it isn’t. I’m trying to go a bit deeper and take away his goalscoring record and who he scores against/doesn’t score against. Whether he is a flat track bully or not is irrelevant when it comes to Lukaku. The negative impact on the team when a player acts in such a way is something that can’t really be measured. Spending £80m for the privilege is not going to improve Chelsea FC
It’s July 4th as I type this up. I’m going to stop making predictions on who is coming and who isn’t (I’m not) as I feel like I must be jinxing it. Either that or we have no clue how to negotiate transfers.